Trump stops the globalist pillaging of America: Ellis

President Trump has made it clear he will no longer allow other countries to pillage our country while flying the false flag of free trade.

Previous administrations stood by helplessly while China and other trading partners used every trick in the book to rob us blind and destroy American farms, jobs and industries.

Illegally imported goods run the gambit from steel and foodstuffs to construction materials, auto parts, home appliances, chemicals and industrial equipment. And that’s not counting the opioids killing tens of thousands of Americans every year.

This is a good time to review exactly how China and other bad actors evade our laws and dump unfairly priced goods on our shores.

China regularly transships its goods through other countries such as Vietnam or Malaysia, falsely claiming they originated in that third country, to avoid paying import taxes.

It’s so bad Vietnam slapped a tariff on Chinese products relabeled as “Made-in-Vietnam” for transshipment to the United States.

“The faking of origin and the illegal transshipment of goods happens most often in the sectors of textiles, seafood, agricultural products, tiles, honey, steel and iron, aluminum and timber products,” the Vietnam customs department said in a statement posted on a government website.

Chinese exporters are relabeling their products to avoid anti-dumping duties imposed by the U.S. Commerce Department, Voice of America reports.

China circumvents tariffs on oil drilling equipment by transshipping the goods through India, South Korea and other countries. Imports of Indian and Korean drilling couplings made from Chinese steel have increased threefold over the last two years.

There’s no doubt China illegally subsidizes these imports – the finished oil drilling products sell for less than the cost of the raw steel that goes into them.

That’s the case with some Chinese aluminum motorcycle parts, too. The imported parts sell for what Michigan manufacturers pay for the raw materials.

China’s rampant mislabeling and transshipment of steel and aluminum through third countries is a major reason the Trump administration imposed global tariffs on those metals.

China is running its scams with other exports.

China is moving in on the synthetic turf market, shipping tons of the fake grass to the U.S.

In a review of more than 1,000 shipments of Chinese and Vietnamese synthetic turf (aka Astroturf), less than 2 percent were accurately labeled or coded correctly. The rest were deliberately mislabeled as an item not on the tariff list to avoid duties.

Besides being mislabeled, the imported Astroturf is substandard. One homeowner found her cheap Chinese fake grass was falling apart, flaking off and rubbing off after it was installed.

Our food producers are also victimized.

After China was slapped with a fine for dumping shrimp in the U.S. below market prices, Customs agents intercepted “Indonesian” shrimp that actually originated in China.

China hit the trifecta of cheating – mislabeling, transshipment and dumping – with one product: honey. The feds determined honey from China was being sold below fair market value (dumping), then, voila, Homeland Security seized tons of honey deliberately mislabeled as coming from Vietnam (transshipment). Lead and banned antibiotics have been found in Chinese “honey,” along with artificial sweeteners and corn syrup.

To be fair, China is not the only offender. Globalist companies avoid tariffs and dumping restrictions by moving operations around the world.

As WND has reported, Samsung and LG played Whack-a-Mole with U.S. trade laws. The South Korean conglomerates were making washing machines in South Korea and Mexico and selling them in the U.S. below the cost of production.

When the U.S. slapped a tariff on the imports from those countries, the companies moved production to China. Then, when the Commerce Department tariffed the washing machines made in China, Samsung and LG moved production to Vietnam and Thailand.

Reviewing this record of fraud, there can be no question action is long overdue.

President Trump is not outsourcing the defense of our economic well-being to the toothless bureaucrats of the World Trade Organization.

He’s tired of the world using the U.S. as its piggy bank and is taking tough action against the trade cheats – just as he promised.

Don’t be surprised those who’ve had their hands in the piggy bank are squealing.